Alias
by Ukaisha
Summary: Ms. Claridge looked surprised and then glanced down at her paper, and her pretty cheeks tinged a delicate pink. "Oh, boys, I'm so sorry," she said apologetically, and she made a mark on her sheet. "I didn't realize I had two Craigs."


A/N: My friend James and I were discussing the origin of Tweek's real name, and he gave me an idea too adorable to pass up. We've each decided to take our own creative spin on the actual story behind the head canon, and we're publishing them simultaneously, without consulting each other, to see what we come up with, and to give people two different theories.

Read them both, and decide the true origin of Tweek! 

* * *

Alias

Craig didn't want to leave his mother's side. It was his first day of pre school, and while the rest of the kids would not exactly be strangers, (he had become acquainted with many of them at daycare) the environment was strange, and that was more than enough reason to set him on edge.  
He hated change; hated anything new, anything unknown. Anything unfamiliar to him was dangerous, and he did not like it one bit.

"Craig, honey," his mother cooed softly as she tried to unlatch him from her dress. "You'll be just fine, I promise. Ms. Claridge is an old friend of mine and she's very nice. You'll like her a lot."  
"It's not her, Mom," Craig squeaked from below, gripping her dress harder. "It's..." The other kids? The loud noises? The germ infested toys? He didn't know what frightened him more at this point; it was all overwhelming and chaotic and terrifying all at once.  
"It'll be fun," his mother assured him kindly, yet firmly as she finally detached him from her dress.

With another squeak of terror he stuck his thumb in his mouth, sucking and nibbling the digit with an anxious whining noise. His wide eyes stared at the wriggling, shrieking horde of children, and he flinched when his mother went to soothingly smooth his hair.  
Craig was a nervous child in the best of circumstances; pre school was simply exacerbating the problem.

"Ms. Claridge!" his mother called across the room. The children didn't seem to notice and they continued loudly occupying their respective fun and games, but the teacher heard her just fine. Ms. Claridge was a young, pretty woman and a fresh teacher, only on her second year of teaching pre school, and she had been building block towers with a small group of the quieter children in the room. As she noticed the pair standing in the doorway, she smiled, and excused herself to her students.  
She approached shaking a finger, and when she reached them she chided, "Don't you Ms. Claridge me," talking to Craig's mother. "You can still call me Ellen."  
The two women giggled like girls.

When she got too close, Craig hid in his mother's dress again. Unbeknownst to him, Ms. Claridge smiled down at his head. "And is this Craig?" she asked, kneeling down to reach his level. "He seems like such a sweetie."  
She sounded so nice that Craig risked a glance at her face, but finding her so low and near made him even MORE nervous.  
What's worse, she was really, really pretty. Way prettier than his mother.  
Craig didn't like attractive people; they unnerved him.  
Away he hid again.

"He's a little nervous about his first day," Craig heard his mother reply as she tried once again to peel him off of her.  
"He's not the only one," Ms. Claridge laughed sweetly. "A little boy named Stanley came in not long ago no better off than your Craig. He nearly started crying when his mother tried to leave. But Sheila Broflovski's son –you know her, don't you? The Jewish lady?- her boy Kyle came right over and asked him to play Power Rangers with him, and now Stanley's happy as a lark. I think Craig just needs a friend."  
"Perhaps a child who's a little more quiet?" Craig's mother replied unsurely.  
Both she and Ms. Claridge glanced to the group of four boys, who seemed to be causing the most ruckus out of any of the others. Craig would surely be intimidated by such obnoxious playmates.  
"Hmm..." Ms. Claridge looked around the room, her gaze falling on two little boys nearby, both of them playing with Tonka trucks. "Clyde, Token, can you boys come here for a moment?"

The two jumped up and came right up to them, both of them smiling.  
Craig risked a glance; they both seemed calm and reasonable, considering the chaos of the rest of the children around them.

Ms. Claridge introduced them by gesturing over each one. "Craig, this is Clyde-" she gestured to a pudgy boy with shaggy brown hair, who greeted him enthusiastically. "-and this is Token." The second boy was black with his head cut very close to the scalp, and he also greeted him when prompted. They seemed quiet and friendly enough, and Craig slowly began to loosen his grip on the dress.  
Craig's mother nudged him, and he somehow managed to shyly squeak, "Hello," in response.  
"Why don't you boys share your trucks with Craig?" Ms. Claridge asked.  
"Okay!" Clyde said happily, and he reached out and grabbed Craig's hand. "Come on!"  
For a moment, Craig was caught with one hand on his mother's dress and the other hand being pulled towards a set of bright yellow trucks. He seemed uncertain in which direction he should go, but his mother said reassuringly, "Go on sweetie," and he let go.  
"He'll be just fine," he heard Ms. Claridge say as the two women began walking away. Craig tried to get his mother's attention, but she only called back:  
"Have a good day dear!" And then, she turned away.

Craig felt a surge of panic and displacement that lasted a few, terrifying seconds, but then Clyde stopped pulling him, and he and Token sat down at the trucks.  
"We're gonna build a town with all the Legos," Token told him, and then Clyde added,  
"But we've gotta deliver them on the trucks first. See?" Clyde drove a Tonka to a pile of Legos, and then lifted them into the back of the truck. Then, making little engine noises, he slowly pushed the truck a few feet away, where Token had taken up residence with a few crude Lego houses.

Craig just stood there, watching them, unsure of what to do.

Clyde and Token's smiles faded.  
"Do you want to drive?" asked Clyde, and Craig shook his head.  
"Do you want to build houses?" asked Token, and Craig shook his head.  
"Why not?" they both asked.

Craig's voice caught in his throat, but he eventually squeaked out all the reasons he didn't want to touch the trucks: "The trucks are really dirty, and they're big and they could roll over your finger and hurt you, and what if someone put the Legos in their mouths and chewed on them? It's gross," he finished, again sticking a thumb in his mouth and suckling it, and in no way realizing the irony.  
The other two boys exchanged looks, and then shrugged.  
"You're weird," Token said, and they went right back to playing.  
Craig just sat, and watched.

Not much later, the children were lined up against the wall while Ms. Claridge took attendance. She explained that whenever a student heard their name called, they were supposed to say "Here!" and sit down until all of the other kids were called. Then, after attendance, they would start the school day.

Craig was standing in between Clyde and Token, who so far hadn't gotten the boy to say anything else but seemed willing enough to continue sticking around him. Craig had given them no reason to necessarily dislike them, so they regarded him as one might an inanimate doll, instead dragging him around and talking to him but not really expecting him to answer or do anything on his own.  
Craig was okay with this, and in fact, it comforted him. Part of what had unsettled him was the pressure of having to interact with other children, and this allowed him to slowly adapt to them. He was finding that they weren't so bad, and already he was growing more comfortable. He was beginning to think pre school might not be as bad as he'd first thought.

"Token?" Ms. Claridge called. She was going down the list in alphabetical order, and Token's surname, Black, was first.  
"Here!" Token said, and he sat down, leaning against the wall. He grinned back up at his friends, and whispered, "First!" as pleased as could be.  
"Trent?"  
"Here."  
"Kyle?"  
"Here!"  
"Eric?"  
From somewhere further down the line, they heard another boy say, "Here!" and he plopped himself down. He was enormously fat, and when the three caught a glimpse of him, all of them, including Craig, snickered.

"Clyde?"  
"Here!" Clyde sat down and gave Token a high five, as though having a name near the front of the alphabet was something they had personally achieved.  
Above all, Craig was definitely starting to warm up to them. Clyde and Token were very friendly and pleasant company; they didn't expect much of him, and he liked them. He hadn't really ever had any friends before pre school.

Craig eagerly awaited for Ms. Claridge to get through the rest of the names so he could sit down with his friends, but it took forever. Craig did not quite know the whole alphabet by heart, but he had a feeling his was near the very end, and he was one of the only boys still standing when she finally heard Ms. Claridge say:  
"Craig?"  
Craig had been waiting for her to say it for so long that he was actually able to sound off with a reasonably loud "Here!" but his response was simultaneous with another. Of the line of children, all but four were left standing, and while every other time only one had sat down at a time, this time, two of them sat down at once.

Ms. Claridge looked surprised and then glanced down at her paper, and her pretty cheeks tinged a delicate pink. "Oh, boys, I'm so sorry," she said apologetically, and she made a mark on her sheet. "I didn't realize I had two Craigs."  
Two Craigs?  
"And you're both right next to each other; how confusing."  
The children looked up and down the line. South Park was a very small town, and it was unusual for someone to share a first name with another person. None of the children had ever personally known someone with a first name the same as someone else's first name.

"Let's do this again. Will you boys who just sat down stand up again please?" Craig unsurely got to his feet, and he saw, at least ten kids down the line, another boy stand with him. He didn't look very pleasant at all.  
"Craig _Tucker?"_ Ms. Claridge said, this time enunciating the surname.  
There was a pause, and then the boy at the far end of the line said, "Here," and he slouched back to the ground.  
"Craig _Tweak_?"  
"Um...here," Craig mumbled, the words hardly audible as he took his seat again.  
"There we go," Ms. Claridge said pleasantly, and she marked them both off on her roster. "That'll sure get tricky, won't it boys?"

"You're both named Craig?" Clyde whispered to Craig. "That's weird."  
"You're a really weird kid," Token said again.  
"Um, yeah..." Craig didn't know whether to agree with them or what to do. HE hadn't known there was another Craig.

The three of them tried to get a glimpse down the line at the other Craig, but then the last names were called, and all of the children were getting up and beginning to run about again.  
The other Craig disappeared into the crowd.

Pre school was a little learning time and a lot of play time. After some very casual instruction on the alphabet song, the children were left to finger paint all in a group. Left to their own devices, the children began to gossip, and as children, they had little to no restrictions on what to say, and it wasn't hard to catch snippets of conversation.

"Which Craig is which?" asked Wendy, a pretty girl with long black hair who Craig remembered had come right before him and the other Craig. She was the only one not wearing a coat; Stanley, the shy boy from earlier, had puked on her shortly after role call.  
"The black haired one is Craig Tucker, I think," replied another girl, Bebe, her frizzy blonde curls short and Shirley Temple-like. "The one with crazy yellow hair is Craig Tweak."  
"I think it's the other one who's crazy," said Eric, the fat one who seemed to feel his opinion should matter to everyone. "He doesn't talk to anyone."  
"Neither does this one," Clyde felt the need to announce as he pointed down at Craig.  
His cheeks warm with embarrassment, he was determined not to look up at anyone, and he continued making long, multi-colored lines on the paper; each finger was a different color, and he was being careful not to blend them.  
"This Craig is weird," Token said again, this time for everyone to hear. "He doesn't like playing with trucks. He's scared of them."  
"I'm not scared," Craig mumbled, but of course, no one heard him.

"What kind of a name is 'Craig Tweak' anyway?" asked Kyle, whose oversized green hat completely dwarfed his head. Kyle sat directly across from him, and to either side were the other three boys Craig had seen him with since he'd gotten here.  
Eric sneered at him, "You're one to talk, Barf-roll-ski."  
"It's _Broflovski, _fatbutt," Kyle snapped back, pinching the other boy's arm.  
"Kyle!" Stanley said, mortified. "You can't say that, it's a bad word."  
"Butt?" Kyle repeated, confused.  
"Yeah!"  
From beside them, a little boy in an orange parka with a red scarf wrapped tightly around his face mumbled something inaudible. The three boys around him burst out laughing, and in between delighted giggles, Stanley said:  
"Kenny! That's even WORSE!"

Craig continued to ignore them, and he tried to catch a glimpse of the other Craig. Was he feeling as awkward as him right now? Maybe, if he had the same name, he might like the same stuff he did. Maybe he felt the same way about loud noises and germy toys.  
Maybe they could be friends.

The children grew bored of their bickering about the Craigs, and they returned to their own separate conversations.  
"You're pretty jumpy," Token said just between him and Craig, and Craig was, predictably, startled.  
"I, um..."  
"Are you scared all the time?" Clyde asked, sounding genuinely worried.  
"No, I'm not scared! I'm just...I don't know, really nervous," he finished lamely. Clyde seemed bemused again.  
"Aren't they the same thing?"  
Craig didn't really know if they were or not, but then someone loudly honked the horn from one of the Tonka trucks in his ear, and he started again, so alarmed that he knocked over two vials of finger paint. Blue and yellow smeared together on the paper to make a sick-puke green, not unlike the gift that Stanley had so generous bestowed upon Wendy.  
He heard giggles behind him, and found a mean looking kid standing directly behind him, a smug look on his face.

"He's such a baby," Trent teased, and he honked the horn again and again. Even though he watched him doing it, knew to expect it, Craig twitched and involuntarily released a nervous "Ngh!" each and every honk. He puts his hands over his ears and closed his eyes shut to block out the noise.

He was hoping Clyde and Token would stand up to him and make him stop being mean, but they did not; they awkwardly sat off to the side, uncomfortable but not bothered enough to stop him.  
Trent continued blasting the Tonka truck's horn in his face and laughing at him until he grew bored.  
"Don't start crying, _Craig_," Trent sneered as he dropped the truck. "A baby like you should go back to daycare."

Craig was very near to crying, but he was somehow managing to bite back the tears. He openly cried at home, but pre school was different; he didn't want to cry in front of everyone. He just popped his thumb back in his mouth, still spotted with paint, and suckled hard.  
"Craig's a baby! A baby!" Trent laughed loudly, and he kicked his chair as he stomped away.

Rather than comfort him, Clyde opted for the brute honesty that defined childhood friendship: "You are kind of a baby."  
This, more than anything, made him want to cry. He liked Clyde and Token; he wanted them to be his friends. He didn't want to be known on the first day as a baby.

So when Ms. Claridge realized how close he was to crying and came right over to comfort him, he told her nothing was wrong, and that he wasn't upset at all. He yanked his thumb out of his mouth and into the paint and he smeared it all over his poster, his wet sniffles the only tell-tale sign of his encounter.

"Alright kids," Ms. Claridge addressed the young class, clapping her hands and sounding genuinely excited as only a fresh teacher can. "Let's finish up painting! Then we'll write our names on our posters and show our parents when we get home, okay?"  
The class chorused their agreement.  
"Do any of you need help writing your names?"  
The odd hand or two went up, but the rest simply looked at each other unsurely. Craig wanted to raise his hand, but he didn't want Clyde or Token to know that he couldn't write his name when it seemed like everyone else in class could.  
"I'll come around and help all of you," Ms. Claridge promised.

Craig stared blankly at his finger painting, and to take up time, he continued adding finishing touches to it. He hadn't really drawn anything; it was just a pleasant mix of streaks and smears of color, disregarding the big splotch of puke green in one corner. It was pretty and he liked it, but the problem was getting his name on it; his parents had tried to teach him, but the letters weren't pronounced how they were spelled and it looked weird.

The chatter had started up again, and Craig perked up when he heard Kyle speak, sounding concerned.  
"What's wrong, Stan?"  
Stanley seemed to be doing exactly what he was doing: continuing to smear pointless streaks of paint on the paper to prolong the inevitable. Finally, he mumbled, "I don't know how to write my name."  
"Really?" Kyle seemed surprised. "My ma taught me. She said the earlier you learn, the better."  
"Your mom's a bitch," Eric said, who was streaking what appeared to be his name in fat red letters right across the top.  
"What does that mean?"  
"My mom says it's a really bad word to call a lady."  
"Oh." It finally sunk in that he was supposed to be offended by this, and then Kyle's face scrunched up angrily. "My mom is not a bitch!"  
"Kyle!" Stanley gasped again at the expletive.

After the skirmish, Kyle offered to write Stanley's name for him, and this really got Craig's attention. He watched Kyle write in awkward block letters, "STAN MARSH," and Stanley seemed so pleased with the result that Kenny asked him to write his too. He observed as Kyle sounded out his last name over and over again, (Kenny only knew how to spell his first name; the other one was a mystery) and it wound up going down as "KENNY MIKORMIK," which seemed to suit him just fine.

A timid boy Craig didn't know requested that Kyle write his name as well; he said he'd get grounded if he brought the painting home with it spelled wrong.  
Clyde and Token left the table together, having already written their names and moving onto the next activity before ensuring that Craig was done with his.  
Since they were both gone, Craig asked shyly, "Can you write mine?" just as Kyle wrote out a big blue 'H' to the end of the other boy's name; BUTURS STOCH.  
At least he'd tried.

Kyle seemed peeved by the request; he was proud that he could write, but the novelty of being asked to do the names of others was wearing off, and he replied shortly, "Can't you do it yourself?"  
Craig didn't want to bother him, so he just mumbled an apology and pulled the painting back.  
But then Stanley prodded Kyle's shoulder and said, "Come on Kyle, be nice?"  
And Kyle sighed and reached out for the finger painting.

"Cray...Cr-ay-guh," he sounded out, and CRAG wound up on the paper. "What's your last name?" he asked.  
"Tweak," Craig said.  
"Hey!" Craig flinched again as Eric's loud mouth demanded attention again. "I know that word. My mom uses it sometimes. My mom says it's what happens when you snort Coke."  
"Like the soda?" Stanley asked. He seemed bemused, as did the rest of the children.  
"How am I supposed to know?" Eric said defensively, suddenly unsure of himself, but then he brazenly continued. "But my mom says that it makes you all twitchy and stuff. That Craig kid _is_ really twitchy."  
"You're making that up," Kyle accused.  
"Am not!"  
"Are so!"  
"Am double not!"  
"Are triple so!"  
"Am not to infinity!"

Kyle didn't seem to have anything that beat infinity, so he just focused on the paper and finished writing out Craig's surname, sounding it out a few times before putting it to paper.  
"Twe-Twee-kuh."  
The name on the paper read CRAG TWEEK.

Craig was pretty sure that wasn't exactly how you spelled it, but it certainly looked nicer than the attempts he'd made at spelling his own name back home.  
"Thanks!" he said, and he brightened up considerably. But then, a voice startled him from behind:  
"That's not how you spell it."  
Craig turned and the boys across from him looked up. It was the other Craig, and he was holding up his finger painting, the poster paper consisting of nothing but multi-colored stars. He pointed to the corner where CRAIG TUCKER was smeared into the paper with blue paint, but still legible.

Craig couldn't tell if his version of Craig was right or not, but Kyle evidently didn't appreciate being called out on his questionable spelling. "How would I know if he can't spell his own name?" he snapped, shoving the paper towards Craig.  
The other Craig just shrugged. "It's still wrong," he said. He left without waiting for even Craig to respond.  
"What a dick," Kyle said loudly. This time, Stanley agreed with his choice of words rather than berating him for them. The feeling seemed to be mutual between the four.  
Craig just watched him leave, contemplating whether or not to be intimidated. He still hoped, inside, that they might be friends.

The rest of the morning was uneventful. Nap time passed, and then there was a little more instruction on the alphabet after Ms. Claridge realized that most of the children (who had claimed to be able to spell their names) had in fact spelled them wrong, or else written the letters incorrectly.  
She was very patient and understanding between every student, and never made them feel singled out for their ability, whatever level it was.

Craig had finally managed to memorize the way to properly write his name, (although he still did not understand it; it was a weird name) by the time the lesson was over, and Ms. Claridge got their attention.  
"Why don't we go outside?" she said, again clapping her hands together in the characteristic enthusiasm of a young teacher. "It'll start snowing soon, but it's a nice day today. You kids should go out and enjoy it!"

The kids seemed to think this was the greatest idea ever, and it wasn't hard to understand why; the pre school had an excellent outside playground, complete with full swing sets and slides and jungle gyms and everything else they could ever want. They were bored from trying to learn letters, things that didn't seem so important, and they were ready to play again.

As the kids ran around and shrugged into their coats, (excluding Stanley, who lent his to Wendy to apologize for puking on hers before) Craig returned to where the finger paintings were laid out to dry. Now that he knew how to spell his name, he wanted to correct the well-intended but still ultimately wrong spelling Kyle had bestowed upon his painting.  
However, when he found it, something was wrong. Someone had smeared blue paint all over his first name, leaving the CRAG part covered by a thick glop of blue and the TWEEK part all by itself.  
"Craig, come on sweetie," Ms. Claridge called. He was the last to leave the class. "You can see your painting again soon, we're all going outside now.  
"Yes, Ms. Claridge," Craig said obediently. Still, he stared at the ugly splash of blue hiding his name from sight for a few more seconds before he spun around and ran out of the classroom to catch up.

Once the class had all come together, Ms. Claridge released them to do as they liked on the playground, and they all set off at once to occupy every end of it.

Clyde and Token had already taken up residence at a Four Square court by the time Craig found them amidst all the chaos. Token was holding a soft rubber ball, and they both exchanged uncertain glances as Craig came up to them, smiling expectantly.  
"Are we playing?" he asked.  
"CAN you play?" answered Token. "You aren't afraid?"  
"No." Games like Four Square weren't too bad as long as the other kids didn't throw the ball too hard, and if he got out, he would be out for only a few rounds and then he'd go right back in. And since it was a man-on-man game, there was no pressure to play well for the good of the team. Craig liked this sort of game.  
Clyde and Token still looked doubtful, but they shrugged and let him occupy a square.

"I'll join too." Craig froze in place as the fourth and final player stepped into the court. It was Trent, with a smug grin on his face and an evil look in his eye.  
Clyde and Token didn't seem to have a problem with this, but when Craig caught his eye, Trent punched a fist into his palm, and Craig unconsciously twitched and released a nervous grunt, but he stood his ground.

The sidelines piled up with kids waiting their turns as the game commenced, fast and furious. Craig managed to keep up with the ball, retaining utmost focus on it whenever it hit the court and managing to personally knock Clyde out by the end of the first rapid-fire minute. Clyde looked heart broken being the first out and he was a very poor sport about it, but eventually the game continued.  
A boy named Jason stepped in to replace him, but Token knocked him out almost immediately, and then a boy named Kevin hopped onto the court in his stead.  
The game began again, the ball bouncing quickly from one square to another as the boys dodged and lunged and grunted to keep up with it.

Craig was enjoying himself, and he felt like for once, he showing the other kids that he wasn't just some twitchy, nervous kid.

The ball bounced once in his square, and he bounced it to Token, who bounced it to Trent.  
Craig had so far kept his eyes firmly planted on the red rubber ball, but for a split second, they darted to Trent's face. He could only see his maniacal grin as the other boy power punched the rubber ball towards him, and then all too late, he realized that the pass was an attack. Craig barely had time to throw up his arms, but the ball soared right past his defenses and decked him right in the face, and then bounced loudly off of the court.

Craig took a few steps back, his hands flying upwards to cradle his face where the ball had made contact. Tears began to involuntarily fill his eyes and his lips quivered, especially when he heard Trent laugh.  
"What? Is the baby going to cry again?" he teased, and Craig bit his lip, not replying; just trying to stop the tears.  
"That wasn't nice," Token began to say, but Trent's jeering overruled him.  
"Get off of the court. Baby Craig can go to the back of the line."

Craig tried to nonchalantly wipe his face off with his sleeve and he stepped out of his square, brushing shoulders with whoever was next to come up onto the court. Trent's mocking laugh was cut short by the hollow sound of a rubber ball making contact, and from behind him, Craig heard the bully exclaim: "OW!"

Craig glanced over his shoulder to see the other Craig standing in his square, and Trent holding a hand over his eye. Rather than burst into tears as Craig had done, Trent's smirk had become an angry sneer, and he engaged in a glaring match with the other Craig.  
"I ought to sock your lights out for that!" he growled.  
"Just play," the other Craig said, dismissively. "Either play or get off the court."  
The other Craig seemed to feel his gaze on the back of his neck, for he turned his head to acknowledge him for a second, and then he returned to his game. He didn't seem interested in him at all, and he did not look back a second time.

That other Craig, he seemed cool. Like he would be a good friend.  
Craig decided: the next time the other Craig wasn't engaged in something, he would ask him if he wanted to be friends.

The other Craig wound up remaining in the Four Square court for some time and Craig got bored. Clyde eventually wound up going back in, but the line was long, and it seemed silly to wait all that time until he got to play again.  
He wandered over to the sand box, unused by any of the other children, who saw it as a babyish thing to do when they had things like slides and monkey bars to play on.  
Craig didn't mind; the sandbox was a little dirty, but it was solitary and quiet and almost serene.  
He knelt down in the sand, digging and building holes and piles contentedly, deaf to the world until a loud, piercing whistle cut through the raucous cries on the playground.  
Ms. Claridge stood off the side, waving her arm high in the air.  
"Five minutes before we go inside, kids!" she was calling. "Get ready to wrap it up!"

Craig stood up from the sandbox, dusting the sand away and clapping it off of his hands, and he began his search for Clyde and Token.  
When he located them, he happily realized that they were with the other Craig, who appeared to have made friends with them as well. All three of them were laughing and talking about the last round of Four Square, where in Craig had gotten Trent out for the second time and Trent had responded with a massive temper tantrum that embarrassed him in front of everyone.

He quietly approached and stood expectantly beside them, smiling and listening patiently to their chatter before Clyde finally noticed him. He elbowed Token and they both went quiet, until eventually the other Craig noticed him as well.

Craig's smile faltered when he saw his face. Craig had figured that if the other Craig had befriended his friends, then maybe they would all be friends together.  
Instead, the other Craig looked at him like you might look at a bug squished on the underside of your shoe; not with a vicious smirk like Trent had, but more like with some sort of distaste at just having to look at him.  
"What do _you_ want?" the other Craig asked.  
Craig hesitated before saying, "I was just coming to hang out. You know, like-"  
"I don't want to be your friend," he interrupted bluntly.  
"Oh." Craig wanted to shrink up and fly away like the bug the other Craig seemed to think he was. He sounded so...disgusted.

"Do you know what I've had to deal with today because of you?" The other Craig stepped away from Clyde and Token, and without a second thought, he shoved Craig, hard. He took it with a nervous grunt and he took a step back. He couldn't bring his eyes up to the other Craig's face; they remained firmly aimed to the ground.  
"N-no?"  
"All day everyone's been calling me a baby because we have the same name. Because you're so afraid of everything and all you do is squeak and twitch and cry about everything."  
The other Craig shoved him again, and Craig took another step back, his eyes still refusing to meet his tormentor's gaze. He wanted to say that it wasn't his fault; he wasn't always so scared. He was just nervous; it was his first day; Trent had been picking on him; he wasn't a baby. He wanted to say anything to redeem himself, but all he could do in response to the shrug was utter a high-pitch, "Ngh!"  
"Why did you have to steal my name, you stupid baby?" The other Craig shoved him again, harder, and Craig took two steps back. "It's MY name. I'M Craig, and YOU can't have MY name. You're just some tweeked out baby."

The other Craig shoved him one last time, harder than any of the others, and Craig fall backwards onto the ground with one last squeaked, "GAH!" of surprise. He didn't even bother trying to get to his feet; he just held himself up, shuddering, waiting.

They had attracted quite a crowd by this point; nearly the entire class was surrounding them, loudly and shamelessly egging them on. Except, Craig realized, while most of them were calling "Craig," (which was to be expected; they both shared the name) every now and then someone would yell his last name.  
He couldn't help but notice that even when they called "Tweak," they never called "Tucker."

The whistle sounded again, and it was time to go inside.

The other Craig only waited a few seconds, standing over him indecisively before choosing to walk away. He didn't even leave him with any last words; just a disappointed look and a shake of his head, and he was gone.

Clyde and Token, who Craig was beginning to think (correctly) that they had only been friendly towards him because their teacher had asked them to be, seemed a little torn. Clyde offered an obligatory hand to help him up, but they offered no words of encouragement, nor any apology for the other Craig.  
"He's right, you know," Clyde shyly admitted, and Craig had no rebuttal for this.  
"You are kind of weird," Token added.

The two began to head back inside, but Craig stayed behind, trying to get himself together before Ms. Claridge saw his eyes wet and red again and asked what was wrong. His palms were scrapped from where he'd landed on the pavement, and his cheeks burned with shame and embarrassment.  
If there was any doubt about his cowardice before, it was surely gone. Now EVERYONE would think like the other Craig; they would think he was a baby and scared of everything, even if he really wasn't.

As the children trailed inside, he could hear the others discussing what had just happened, including the timid blond boy from before nervously stuttering that they should tell the teacher.  
"No way, Butters," Stanley was fervently trying to convince him. "If you tell, that makes you a tattletale. You don't want to be a tattle, do you?"  
"Well, I g-guess not, fellas..."  
"Craig's such a jerk," said Kyle angrily, and Craig had a feeling that he meant the OTHER Craig, not him. "He's not any better than Trent."  
"You didn't try too hard to stop him," Eric pointed out snidely.  
"Shut up, fatso."  
" 'ey! I'm not fat!"

The five boys were the last of the class to return to the classroom aside for Craig, who continued standing stiffly by himself in the cold. He knew he had to go with them; already Ms. Claridge was observing him concernedly, and his gaze fell to his shoes to avoid her.  
Surely, she was wondering why he wasn't moving with the rest of the group, but he was afraid of having to face the other Craig again; of being accused of not deserving his own name.  
The thought of it alone was enough to make him nervously twitch again, and he bit back another nervous grunt.

How was he supposed to make peace with someone whose primary issue with him was the fact that they shared the same name?

"'Ey, Tweek!"  
Taken aback, Craig looked back up at Eric, the last of the five and the only one remaining beside him. "Come on already! Are you just going to stand there and tweek out in the cold?"  
"Eric, where did you learn a word like that?" Ms. Claridge demanded sternly.  
"My mom. She says it's what happens when you use a lot of Coke."  
Ms. Claridge seemed dumbstruck by his explanation, but she finally said, carefully, "That's not a nice word to describe someone, Eric."  
"But that's his name," Eric complained. "Isn't that his name?"

To himself, though he said nothing as he headed for the classroom, Craig agreed.

That was right, after all.  
It WAS his name. 

* * *

Tweek quietly observed as the parents slowly collected their children from pre school. In his hands he clutched his finger painting, the clunky letters spelling out "TWEEK" beside a messy splotch of blue.

Clyde and Token had come to say goodbye, as though they had not entirely forgotten him, but they seemed to do it more out of kindness than genuine interest in him. It was clear that their new friend Craig was very rapidly taking the old one's place.  
When they said goodbye, they both called him, "Tweek."  
Everyone in the class called him that now.  
Ms. Claridge had given up trying to stop it.

His mother was one of the last to reach the classroom, as she had been one of the last to drop him off this morning, and she apologized breathlessly to Ms. Claridge for the wait.  
"The coffee shop is so busy this time of year," she explained. "Richard hardly knows how to keep up with it all."  
"It's no trouble," Ms. Claridge assured her kindly. "Craig is certainly not a bother; if you wind up running late I'm more than happy to keep an eye on him for a few extra minutes."

Tweek approached his mother with the finger painting in hand, and he wordlessly showed the painting to her. It was really just a bunch of random streaks and splotches of all different colors, but she seemed happy enough with it, until she noticed the name in the corner.  
"'Tweek'?" she read, and then she smiled softly at him. "You misspelled your name, honey. And where's your first name?"  
"'Tweek' seems to be a nickname he's picked up," Ms. Claridge informed her, not sounding particularly thrilled. "The kids have been calling him that all day and he keeps responding to it. I think it's to tell him apart from the other Craig."  
Tweek's mother just chuckled. "You know, that's so cute; Richard always used to go by his last name in school when he was a kid."  
"You don't say?" she said, surprised.  
"Oh yes, that's one of the reasons he named the coffee shop Tweak Bros. He'll think it's so funny that everyone calls his son that as well."  
"Well, as long as the nickname doesn't upset him. I don't want the children using it as an insult."

The pair of them bid goodbye to Ms. Claridge, promising to see her tomorrow, and they began the walk to the car. In one hand Tweek grasped his mother's hand; in the other he carried the finger painting, still occasionally glancing at the thick letters proclaiming "TWEEK" on the paper.  
"How was your first day, honey?" his mother asked.  
"Okay, I guess," he said. He wasn't going to tell her about the other Craig or any of the other kids; he didn't want to be a tattletale.  
"Did you make any friends?"  
He hesitated, and then replied, "Sort of?" which was not strictly untrue. It wasn't like Clyde and Token had announced as bluntly as Craig had that they would not be his friends.  
"That's nice, honey." She caught him glancing at the finger painting in his hands, and she smiled at him. "So the other kids call you 'Tweek' now, huh?"  
In response, Tweek said, shyly, "It's my name. I like it."  
"Of course you do, honey. Do you want me and Dad to call you that too?"  
"Yes," he answered immediately. If he was going to ditch 'Craig', he may as well do it all the way. "It's my name," he said again, by means of explanation.  
"Alright, Tweek," she said, humoring him. His mother let go of his hand to softly stroke his hair. "Whatever makes you happy."

Still too short for the state of Colorado's preference, Tweek had to ride in a booster seat in the back. After his mother buckled him in and assumed the driver's seat, Tweek looked over his finger painting again, enjoying the abstract shapes and colors but mostly enjoying the letters at the top.  
TWEEK.

That was his name, and he liked it.  
Craig was some boy who was mean; he was a dick and he was no better than Trent. But Tweek was Tweek, and he liked having that name to himself.  
Craig Tucker could keep his stupid name. Tweek would make a name for himself, and it didn't have to have anything to do with Craig Tucker.


End file.
